Reflective Journal One

I was born on September 6th, 1984, in Westlake Village, California. My parents divorced when I was a couple of months old. In a rare case the court decided to grant custody to my father. We moved to Santa Maria, California. He worked at Vandenberg Air Force Base and spent most of his time there working long hours. He spent most of his money assuring that I went to private school. This was my foundation: a conservative farm town in the central coast of California. Almost everyone that lives there thinks it is some sort of paradise, almost completely bored or ignorant of their isolation.

I originally went to a public school for kindergarten and my father was disappointed at how little I had progressed intellectually. I also was not getting along very well with my classmates. He moved me to a private school that guaranteed that I would be able to read once I completed kindergarten, however when I took my aptitude test I was cleared to go into first grade but I would have been socially stunted. My father made the decision to hold me back. Ironically, when I was held back in kindergarten I ended up being the top student in the class and at last, socially adjusted. I spent most of my childhood alone or with one parent at a time. It was very lonely and I had to learn how to do a lot of things for myself at a young age. It was not that independence was encouraged by my parents it was more of a consequence and understanding what my father had to do in order for us to be happy.

There were many values instilled into my formative education. I was taught to read fluently from kindergarten and from the age of six to twelve I was required to learn and memorize bible verses. I am one of the only people I know that actually took phonics courses along with spelling that aided in my literary skills. My school would host speech contests against other local schools and I memorized Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech as well as Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech. I guess I have always been a little activist/ muckraker. Although, I never won any of the speech competitions I remember how much I enjoyed the act of reading great speeches, learning about them, and memorizing them. I guess I have always been a rhetorical scholar as well.

Although, I was socially adjusted I was not socially accepted. It is not often that a father gets custody of a daughter in a divorce. Many parents did not want their children to associate with me because of my family background. Being somewhat of an outcast in a religious school I did not have very many friends. Not having many friends meant that I could be more focused in my school work. However, not having very many friends left me ill prepared on a social level with my peers. Being an only child I spent all of my time outside of school exclusively with my dad. My father and I spent a lot of time going to the beach. Until, recently I have never lived farther than fifteen minutes from the Pacific Ocean. We did not develop too many family traditions. He was the black sheep of his family but sometimes my mom and I would spend holidays together and I remember some of those fondly. Even though I grew up with parents that could not agree on anything, the one thing they did agree was that I was going to go to college. My mother’s parents got divorced during her senior year of high school and her parents spent their time and money getting divorced instead of helping my mother pay for school. As a result my mother never went to college and worked in retail her entire life.

I did not develop a positive social identity until I started attending public school. I think my real love for education started there. The longer I was at the private school the less interested I was in excelling. It was a bad atmosphere for me. When I went to public school I had a fresh start. I went to Lakeview Jr. High School and I transformed from social pariah to big fish in a small pond. Most people look back on their middle school days with great disdain but I was finally in an environment that I could achieve. This was my first experience with public school and I have attended public schools and state universities since. In contrast to my elementary experience I had many friends in public school, I was highly involved in theatre and student government. I was the president of my junior high school and I was even named Santa Barbara County’s Young Teen Woman of the Year. My father still insists that my picture is up in the Lakeview Jr. High office. This is not confirmed.

I attended high school at Ernest Righetti High School. I am almost certain it could win an award for worst actual title of a high school ever. I continued more involvement and over achieving. I was in advanced placement classes earning college credit while in high school. However, I had difficulty finding an activity to occupy my free time. I could not play an instrument and I did not make any of the parts in the plays. I did have a speech class and my high school was forming a speech team my freshman year of high school. Forensics, as it is called, is where I found my niche. I did it for the fun my freshman year but after that I meant business. I competed at three state championships, where I had even made finals with my event and I was the first person in my county to ever qualify for the national championship.

At high school I also made my first gay friend. We bonded very quickly and were soon inseperable. I was instantaneously drawn to Jake and I felt a sort of kinship to him. He tried in many ways to get me to understand what sort of pressure and fear he experienced living in our conservative town. Both of us longed to leave and college would be a haven. We pushed each other academically and both finished in the upper five percent of our class. I would not recognize that my initial attraction to Jake was my homosexuality until later college. Many people could not understand the challenges that face a gay student whether they are in the closet or not. There is always a fear associated with simply being who you are. In many ways its’ terrifying. No matter how safe it may seem to come out, this country is still largely homophobic even if they are not vocal about it.

I chose to go to California State University Long Beach for their forensics program. Long Beach State is known for having one of the most diverse student populations in the country, along with having a top nationally ranked speech team. It was through speech that I was able to express myself and come to grips with my sexuality. I was not certain about who I was when I was growing up in an area that staunchly disapproved but when I had the freedom to even meet more gay people and not be as fearful I was able to understand myself on a new and more honest level. Long Beach is a highly populated liberal Southern California beach city with a large gay and lesbian community. Although I was meeting more gay and lesbian people I did not see myself as a member of that community. I felt more involved within the forensics community in college. I had more in common with them and I had to spend almost all of my weekends with them. I think this is the case for most college students that involved; they feel the greatest affinity to the people that they share a similar extra-curricular.

Forensics might have been what drew me into college but it was a distraction as well. I faultered in my math courses. I was actually acaemdically dis-enrolled from Cal State Long Beach for not sufficiently completing a math course in an allotted time. I felt lost. I began my study and forensics career at Orange Coast College. It was there that I learned discipline and I learned that school was not naturally easy. Although, I was out of Long Beach State I had a drive to push forward. My parents were very disappointed at my school failure and my sexuality. I was cut off financially. I did not have a job and eventually was homeless. I found employment and worked two jobs. I continued to perform in forensics and was successful. I had won two national championships at the junior college level and a national title in the all around national level, but I could not let it get to my head because at the end of the day I still worked at the Starbucks drive thru. I passed my math class and worked my way back to Cal State Long Beach to finish out my speech career and complete my bachelor’s degree.

I had finally found stability when I returned to Cal State Long Beach. I began a committed relationship, that I am still engaged in, and I had my greatest forensic success. I placed 3rd in one of my events, 5th in another and I quarter-finaled four other events, when the tournament was over my team was 8th in the nation and I was 6th speaker in the nation. However, my success at Cal State Long Beach was not limited to forensics. I participated in our school wide conference against violence and overcame my academic obstacles and made the President’s list, eventually I was named one of the top graduates from the communication department. I earned a degree in Communication: Culture and Public Affairs. I keep my forensics trophies and my degree in my living room proudly. Some people would make the claim that I am too confident in my accomplishments, however the awards I have won represent what I have overcome in order to be here today.

Minnesota State Mankato has a nationally competitive forensics team and I was accepted into the graduate program at MSU because of the hard work that I put into my school work and my academics. I am now more motivated to earn my Master’s in Fine Arts in Forensics: Public Speaking. I wish to run my own collegiate forensics team and motivate others the way that my educators, coaches, and mentors have helped me. It is for this reason I wished to learn about the growth of the American college student. I began as a tenacious over achiever, lost my way, and came back. How did I change? And although my progression might not have followed traditional personal growth of the college student I know that my experience unique to me is helpful to examine to improve my ability to educate.